Tackling Trousers Again!

Ya’ll know my troubles and tribulations with trousers. Trust me, there have been many. So far, there are only two made me pants still in my closet. Two pairs of my jaile jeans ended up in the donate pile due to length and fabric. My attempt at several Burda pants ended up in the trash (pooling butt and legs). My Named trousers faired no better. What’s a girl to do?

Make lots and lots of muslins!!! I drafted one from scratch and adjusted a little each time for a total of six muslins. I’ll save you the gorey details, but I learned that you can google things like “saggy butt sewing” and “fabric pooling crotch” and actually get helpful information! Who knew?! At any rate, my six muslins didn’t really yield a workable sloper. Sigh. I think I need professional help.

So, I did notice that the Clover Pattern had a similar crotch curve to my muslin making. I have to say, I have a love hate relationship with this pattern. I made a pair about a year ago and it was an epic FAIL. I was reluctant to try it again. I decided to actually CUT the pattern – yes, that’s right – CUT the pattern, not trace it off. Seriously, plain old lazy and again, that love hate relationship. I’m not sure it’s good to be mad at a pattern before one starts. This time, I cut a size 4 vs. a size 6. My waist is 30″ = size 6. But most patterns end up HUGE on me. I took a chance.

These babies sew up fast! I made my first muslin in about an hour or so. And look – wearable!

I wore them out to dinner that night – and noticed that there was some extra pooling in the front. I came home that night a googled it (isn’t the internet amazing????). I discovered that others noticed that the front waist is higher than the back waist. Ah. I took my cut out pattern and cut away some of the excess waist. I graded about 3/4″ from the center front to the side seam. And, I cut # 2. (heehee. I am so sophomoric.)

Pretty good. Yes. I notice the whiskers in the front and the pooling on the back of my legs. And the fact that I should suck my gut in when taking side pictures. But, they fit me like a glove and my ass looks good. So, tradeoffs. I do think that there is some weird pulling at the side seams. I can’t figure that out…perhaps its me? I always seem to get that. Overall, I’ll be wearing these bad boys and I also plan on making more.

Added bonus? I got more compliments on these trousers at work…so, maybe we sewists are just hard on ourselves? I do think they look better in person than in the picture.

Oh, and one more….Burda Shirt Draped Tee – 3/2010. I took about two inches out of the center front. It’s still huge. I think it makes me look huge. Perhaps I can wear it as my swim cover up. It’s super easy to make and I got to use jukibaby to do the hem…I will say I had a LOT of trouble with the machine because this was a tissue weight knit and it kept wanting to eat it up.

PS. I found out that the local Hancock’s is closing…so I did buy a ton of knit fabric on sale…you know, to experiment with my new toy!

I concur, your ass does look good in these! Nice work! I’ve been oddly intimidated about making pants. Need to get over it though because I wear pants most of the time. Also agree that we’re too hard on ourselves when judging our me mades. Most of the RTW pants I have pool on the back of my leg like that. I think it just happens when you have a close fit & stretchy fabric. I never noticed that until I started trying to fit (and fit and fit and fit) a pants muslin. It was only after I decided to try on a few favorite pairs of RTW pants for comparison that I realized I maybe had actually achieved a pretty good fit and it might be time to chill out.😉